A Call for Help to Save the 743 Falun Gong Practitioners Illegally Jailed in Masanjia Forced Labour Camp

2005-02-04

The Masanjia Forced Labour Camp in Liaoning Province is the so-called "model" for Chinese labour camps where Falun Gong practitioners are being persecuted. The 743 Falun Gong practitioners currently detained there are being tortured physically and mentally, and have been deprived of their livelihoods.

After the past several years of persecution, the guards in Masanjia have become worse and more barbaric. In 2004 alone, there were many cases in which Falun Gong practitioners, after being tortured, became disabled, suffered mental collapse, and some have even died.

Ms. Lin Xiuqin, a Falun Gong practitioner from Benxi, was beaten by policemen. The beating caused several injuries and there are scars on her head and face even today. Ms. Lin is now mentally unstable as a result of the abuse. Ms. Zheng Juxiang, a Falun Gong practitioner from Dalian, was beaten by policewoman Lu Yaoqin. The severe beating resulted in Ms. Zheng suffering a mental collapse. Ms. Guo Xiuli, a practitioner from Benxi, was beaten and lost three teeth. Wang Shuhua from Shenyang was hung up and beaten for a week. Ms. Gao Yaxian, a practitioner from Shenyang, was forced to sit on an iron chair in the small cell (1) with her mouth taped shut. Ms. Huang Yanjin, a practitioner from Chaoyang, was forced to hold the pose known as "flying an airplane" (2) while standing on a chair with a sandbag hanging from her neck. These practitioners are still being jailed today.

The Masanjia Labour Camp abuses the practitioners who refuse to renounce their belief in Falun Gong with beatings, locking them up in a small cell, and forcing them sit on steel chairs. Beside these torture methods, the guards also use other methods, such as starving practitioners. Practitioners are given only a tiny pancake made of corn flour every day, with no vegetable of any kind or water. They forbid them from taking a bath for a long period of time, forbid them from using the toilet, and force the practitioners to work for excessively long shifts. The abuses are applied to practitioners of all ages, including those in their 20s, up to people in their 70s. Especially during the period of "intensified persecution," organized by the Provincial Political and Judiciary Bureau and the Provincial Department of Public Security, the brutality has reached an extreme.

Other torture methods used at Masanjia include hanging practitioners up and beating them, shocking them with electric batons, tying practitioners' legs in the lotus position for long periods of time [where the practitioner is seated with the legs crossed, one on top of the other], and arbitrarily increasing the length of practitioners' prison terms. Some practitioners have been incarcerated for as long as five years. Sometimes the guards lock the practitioners in the toilet or storage rooms, and insult and humiliate them by tearing off their clothes. As further humiliation, they write slanderous anti-Dafa slogans on practitioners' bodies and hang defamatory placards on their necks. They also forbid their relatives from visiting their loved ones. Some of the relatives are allowed to visit, but are forced to stay in rooms that have been wiretapped, so the practitioners are not free to tell their family members about the abuses that take place at Masanjia.

The Masanjia Labour Camp also persecutes the practitioners financially. They do not allow relatives to bring in food and daily necessities, and instead, practitioners have to buy them in the shops at the labour camp at exorbitant prices. Lodging costs at Masanjia are the same price as an expensive hotel. The guards also take away the practitioner's tea and sugar, as well as their commodity stipend that was increased to 12 yuan (3) from the original 7 yuan, which is provided according to labour camp rules for the detainees' daily use. In five years, more than 5,000 practitioners have been incarcerated at Masanjia. Where did such a huge sum of money go? In 2004, the 400,000 yuan income, which the practitioners earned by their forced labour, planting in the spring and harvesting in the autumn, was all confiscated by the labour camp guards.

Since January 1, 2005, thirty practitioners in the First Team have been on a hunger strike to protest the abuse and illegal detention, and other practitioners are also protesting using the same form, as well as other methods, to support them.

We call on all righteous people in the world to please help the practitioners in Masanjia Forced Labour Camp.

Notes

(1) Small cell: The detainee is locked up alone in a very small cell. The guards handcuff the practitioners with their hands behind their back, in a position in which the practitioner can neither move nor lie down. The small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. Detainees have to urinate and defecate in the cell. Only half of a regular meal is served to detainees locked up in a small cell. At night rats are running around. The stench in the small cell is so bad that it is difficult to breathe.

(2) "Flying an Airplane:" In this torture, the head is bent down until it cannot go down any further, while the hands are pulled up and held up to the highest point. The hips have to point up. One is forced to keep this position unchanged for a long time. The body in this position looks like the shape of an airplane, which is how this torture was named.

(3) "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.